Sweet Child O' Mine

Ah. The post-wedding letdown now over, I can reflect that walking Nell down the aisle (and the rest of the night) has bumped "birth of Justin" and "marriage to Rina" down to the #2 and #3 spots on the "proudest moments of my life" list. (If I were to really have such a thing) The totality of the positive energy and the overall goodness of the union seem rare in this day and age. If i could change two things about the night, I would have thanked the Bolstas for their support in my short speech, and I would have not missed the starting point of my Rumba with Shanel (which led her to get a demerit for attempting to lead later in the dance) Oh well. Such small things to complain about. A blessing on your head, to see your daughter wed-- indeed.

Look what I found

A sweet magnum of 1995 Latour, just in time to open for Shanel's wedding this weekend. Completely forgot about this one, and even have a second magnum in the locker. On the list to crack inlcude 95 Harlan, 98 Trotanoy, 95 Calon-Segur, 96 Potet-Canet, 97 Togni, 93 Dunn HM from magnum, and who knows what else. Of course, much of this will be consumed prior to the actual wedding as the facility is proud to pour round hill cab and chard for ten bucks a bottle.....

Big hands in Vegas

OK, this guy, Amir Nasseri, MD, gets my vote for biggest maniac/action junkie I've yet encountered. Ob-Gyn. Has serious ties to the American Hospital in Dubai. I tell him he should meet my partner. I played with him twice. The first hand I played with him, a $5-$10 NL game at the Venetian, I was still stacking chips from a $5K pot I had just won when I looked down at AA. I raised to $60, he went all-in for $1000 and I called and won. Cool.

I have no idea who this guy was. After a couple hands, I realized that playing with him would require some stylistic changes! He open raised every pot to somewhere between $70 and $120. Well, almost every pot. He missed one or two an hour. Otherwise, he raised with any two cards. This worked out great if you had a big hand, because you would often get paid off. Making a little pot building raise to say $30 though was silly, since one knew that you'd be playing for $130 by the time it got back to you. In any event, I leave the first night ahead $5K.

The next night I buy in for $3K and get it up to $5K. My good doctor friend has over $10K on the table though and I want some of it. He will fold sometimes when people play back at him big, but he will also run bluffs and has done so for several thousand dollars.

So after winning the first hand against him I lost the last one. I get dealt red Kings and limp from the cut-off. He makes it $200 from the button and I call. This is the pot I've been waiting all night for. The flop comes K-T-7, all spades. Almost perfect. Not quite of course because his range is any two cards, but chances are I'm way way way ahead. I bet $200 and he calls. OK, this is good.

Turn is a red brick and I bet out $500. He makes it $1100. Hmmm. At this point, I have to figure he has one spade and as long as the river isn't a spade I should win this pot. If he flopped a flush then I still can have the board pair for me. I didn't really think much about his raise as I still thought I was good at this point. In retrospect, if he had air here he might have just put me all in. This way, I'm pretty much forced to either call or push as folding is not an option. I call.

River is another red brick. I should have check-called here, but I bet out and he put me all in. I had to call another $1200 into a pot that was about $8000 or so. I knew I was beat but since his bluffing frequency is high I thought a call was in order. Sure enough he tables Q4 spades and he had me the whole time.

Rebuys... and Cowboys

I always rebuy as soon as I can for as much as I can. This advice has been given by multiple authors and I think its sound. There is something about covering all the other people who dont rebuy. Here's a hand from last night which demonstrates the difference between short stack, fast tournaments and slow deep-stack ones.

First hand and I have 2000 chips and raise the 25-25 blinds to 125 with KK in MP. I make some crack that I have to raise the first hand because I'm a maniac and many of the regulars at the table nod their heads in agreement. A guy in LP repops it to 350. He started with 900 chips, as he had the original 800 plus a 100 bonus for playing live games. Folded to me.

So what's my play here? Usually in a short stack tourney (the villain only has 550 left) I just jam here. There really isn't room for a smaller raise, is there? If I call, what am I going to do on the flop? I'm pretty much gonna jam any flop I think, although I suppose an arguement could be made for check-folding if an Ace flops. But in reality, I'm so far ahead of this guys holdings almost every time that I should just get his money in pre-flop so he can't get away from his JJ or AK or whatever monster he thinks he has.

As I'm grabbing my stack he says, very Jamie Gold-like "You wanna go all-in?", and despite what should clearly be a red flag I respond "Yeah", push in my stack and he beats me to the pot with his AK.

After losing half my stack on that suckout, I came back pretty well. Eventually I catch AKo UTG with blinds at 50-100. I have about 1800 left. I make it 300. I get two callers. Then someone goes all in for 1200. Then the next guy goes all in for 1800. Back to me. Again, this demonstrates why I would really like to limit my tourney play to deepstack events. What choice do I have here except to call? I must be behind, and the fact that there were so many people interested in this hand makes me wonder how many of my 6 outs are really still alive. The good news is that the second all-in guy is a complete donk and has shown some awful awful hands. I call. The two initial callers fold. I'm up against 99 and K8s ???!!!. Flop comes three babies with two clubs and the K8 has a draw. Turn is an off-suit Ace!!! Wow! What a monster stack I will have if I can just avoid a club or a 9 on the river.... Here it comes.. 9 of clubs. I love this game.

The elixer of the gods

Nothing like sipping a little d'Yquem on a Monday night with Rina. While some wines have nuances and characters that require study and patience to understand, this stuff just rocks every single time I get to taste it. And I've never met a soul who didn't "get it" immediately. The house wine of billionaires, I'm fortunate to indulge in a couple 375's a year. If you're out to that fancy dinner and looking over the dessert list, go ahead and spend the $30 for the glass. You may not recall the main course that night, but you will not forget your taste of d'Yquem.